Former FBI Lawyer Who Oversaw Years Of Fourth Amendment Violations By The Agency Nominated For Federal Judge Seat

from the 'lifelong-position-of-power'-is-the-new-'disciplinary-action' dept

So, this is the way the system works, apparently. If you're linked with nearly a decade's worth of surveillance abuses, not only won't you be punished for your malfeasance, but you'll be promoted to a lifelong position of greater power.

A 2010 report by the Department of Justice's internal watchdog found that the FBI misused a type of non-judicial subpoena known as an "exigent letter" to improperly obtain more than 5,500 phone numbers of Americans.

"The FBI broke the law on telephone records privacy and the general counsel's office, headed by Valerie Caproni, sanctioned it and must face consequences," said John Conyers, then the chairman of the House judiciary committee, in April 2010, who called for then-FBI director Robert Mueller to fire her.

Conyers said he was "outraged" that the FBI invented "exigent letters" to more easily obtain phone records, and intimated Caproni was responsible for it. "It's not in the Patriot Act. It never has been. And its use, perhaps coincidentally, began in the same month that Ms Valerie Caproni began her work as general counsel," Conyers said in a hearing that month. The FBI stopped using exigent letters in 2006.

"Exigent circumstance letters" (ECLs) were the end-around the FBI used when its National Security Letters failed to pry loose the phone data it was looking for, or more frequently, when it was deemed that following proper procedure would just take too long. Not that these NSLs were any less abusive -- they were often used to access data in violation of the "limits" built into the PATRIOT Act. Apparently, the NSL loophole frequently wasn't big enough or fast enough, at which point the FBI would craft "exigent letters." These were supposed to be followed up by official NSLs, but the FBI often found it was easier to just not do that.

Caproni doesn't seem to care much for privacy advocates either, considering them to be nothing but ignorant noise to be filtered out.

At one meeting in 2007, Graves recalled, "Caproni said she thought civil libertarians were wasting their time complaining about the NSL [national security letter] powers because the government could just obtain all that information and more through a 215 order by the Fisa court or through a grand jury subpoena issued by a single federal prosecutor and because those orders are secret we would never know. When pressed about that, she insisted that going around the limits on the NSL powers by using 215 or grand jury subpoenas was no big deal and a perfectly permissible use of those powers."

As has been clearly detailed over the years and confirmed by these leaks, giving an entity this sort of power guarantees it will be abused. Caproni's tenure began during the Bush administration and she followed that administration's lead in exploiting Section 215 to its fullest. The FBI's tactics didn't really have to change with the election of a new president, as he went on to expand the powers granted by the PATRIOT Act. Caproni's actions and justifications have fit in perfectly with the government's over the past nine years, despite a regime change.

Caproni is Obama's nominee for this district court seat, which makes sense as his administration has already forgiven her for her agency's past violations. This was done via a secret ruling issued by the Office of Legal Counsel -- the same office that retroactively gave its blessing for torture and warrantless wiretapping that occurred under Bush's administration.

Caproni has vowed to recuse herself from cases where her "impartiality might be questioned" or dealing with issues she was actively involved with in her former position. Unfortunately, this still leaves plenty of room for Caproni to insert herself into the ongoing court battles seeking to hold intelligence agencies accountable for their overreach.

Currently, the ACLU is suing the government in that court on its own behalf (as a Verizon customer) for violating its Fourth Amendment rights. Certainly there will be more to follow. As Karen Greenburg, director of Fordham University's Center on National Security points out, the southern district court of New York is the "premier venue" for terrorism cases.

Would Caproni consider cases like the ACLU's to be the sort she should recuse herself from, seeing as they deal with the same sort of Fourth Amendment violations the FBI routinely performed under her counsel? I'm of the opinion she wouldn't, especially considering her antipathy towards "civil libertarians" and her willingness to not only test the limits on data collection laws, but frequently exceed them if deemed "necessary."

this is basically the same as when we hear of politicians leaving Congress or whatever only to find they have gone straight into a job with a particular industry, eg, Dodd from tosser politician to wanker industry head!

What is the problem?
BSA lawyers in DOJ pursuing bad cases based on cartel demands not actual evidence.
RIAA Lobbyists on the bench hearing copyright cases ignoring basic rules about jurisdiction and demanding 3rd parties go above and beyond the law to do more.

Just because the other ones acted in their 'former' employers best interests and bent the law to try and make it fit doesn't mean that this nominee would end up finding ways to rule the law says what she wants rather than what it actually is.

Best law monied interests can buy, little people don't need rights... they abdicated having them to be 'safe'.

would be interesting to see if any of the cases she was involved in and used these 'special powers' to gain a conviction, could be re-opened now. it would look good on her 'application resume' for the new position

question: have you done anything untoward to gain a conviction?

answer: well now, where do you want me to start?

question: were you caught for breaking the law, just to aid your case?

answer: oh, of course not! i wouldn't be sitting here now if i had, would I?

The system is so corrupted that changing out one or two people for champions of the people will have them becoming aspiring super villains within a month.
There is no way to fix the system within legal means. Trying through illegal means makes us no better than them.

Re:

I used to be proud of being American, and I thought we had one of the best countries in the world. Now, I see that it's no better than any of the dictatorships that we used to look down on.

The individual politicians are eager to sell out the public to special interests for bribes in the form of "campaign contributions". They'll happily let companies pollute the environment, destroy the economy and trample on people's rights.

The government as a whole wants to flush everyone's rights down the toilet. Disarm the populous, spy on them, lock them up without charges, even torture them.

The police have become an elite, untouchable force that can do whatever it wants with impunity. A dozen cops can beat a man to death and it's called "justifiable force", but if you so much as poke a cop with your finger it's "felony assault".